Gwinnett Families Have Until Thursday to Review 51 Course Standards

Gwinnett County parents, students and residents have through Thursday, Sept. 24, to comment on proposed standards for 51 courses, including entrepreneurship, science of flight, English-language instruction and dual-language immersion.

The GEMS 2026 public review covers standards that Gwinnett County Public Schools has either created or revised. The district has not specified which proposals are entirely new and which are updates.

The review is open to the public. A commenter does not need to have a child enrolled in the course or provide a name.

What families are reviewing

Gwinnett calls its curriculum standards Academic Knowledge and Skills, or AKS. They identify the concepts and abilities students are expected to master in each grade or subject.

The AKS provide the foundation for instruction, while teachers use separate curriculum guides, technology and classroom materials to teach them. The current review concerns those learning expectations, not the selection of a particular textbook.

The career and technical group includes Advanced Entrepreneurial Strategies, Entrepreneurship Essentials, Energy and Power Technology, Natural Resources Management and Science of Flight. It also includes sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade standards for exploring audio, video, broadcast and film.

Nanotechnology and Materials Engineering is the lone science course in the review.

The dual-language proposals cover kindergarten through fifth grade in French, Korean and Spanish. Seven additional sets of standards cover English-language instruction from kindergarten through eighth grade.

The special-education section includes alternate science standards in kindergarten through fourth, sixth and seventh grades, plus alternate social studies standards from kindergarten through seventh grade.

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Comments can address individual expectations

The online system organizes each course into strands and individual standards. Reviewers can comment on a specific expectation instead of submitting one response for an entire course.

To participate, select a subject and course from the public-review page, open the relevant strand and choose the individual AKS. The comment icon opens a “Public Review Comment” form. Providing a name is optional.

That structure gives families room to flag unclear language, missing skills, grade-level concerns or expectations that may need further explanation.

Gwinnett’s existing AKS framework is aligned with Georgia’s state standards in language arts, mathematics, science and social studies. The district also maintains local standards for additional programs and courses.

What happens after Thursday

Public comments do not change a standard automatically. They become part of an annual review that continues after the comment window closes.

The GEMS Oversight Committee, which includes school-system and community representatives, is scheduled to meet Oct. 27. The committee reviews proposed revisions and additions, then makes recommendations to the superintendent for adoption by the Gwinnett County Board of Education.

A separate process is beginning for instructional materials. Applications for the district’s Instructional Resources Review Committee are open from Sept. 23 through Oct. 23. That committee is scheduled to meet Dec. 3 as Gwinnett considers world-language resources, with a classroom pilot planned from January through March 2027.

The two opportunities address different questions. The immediate deadline concerns what students should know and be able to do. The later materials review concerns the resources used to help teach those standards.

Families interested in the substance of a course have only through Thursday to enter comments directly into the standards under consideration.